Nature’s Stress Reducer and Anti-inflammatory – CBD Oil

To perform at my very best and help others to do the same is the main reason that I experiment with so many different substances. Many of these substances are considered fringe because of the limited research available on them. Many people would consider cannabis and cannabidiol oil to fit in to this category.

Cannabis has always been of interest to me because of it’s medicinal and psychoactive properties.

If you know me very well, you know that I am always experimenting to increase my health and performance. Cannabis is one of those little appreciated medicinal plants with a huge benefit that most people ignore because they focus on the illegal and psychoactive part, THC. Even though I have experimented with THC, that’s not what this article is about.

Sure, I experimented with smoking pot along with other substances at parties when I was younger just to have fun, but now my experimentation is an attempt to optimize my performance and I think THC plays an interesting role in this.

That’s a topic for another article though. This article is about the benefits of the non-psychoactive and totally legal substance, Cannabidiol (CBD.)

History of Cannabis

Up until the early 20th century, the medicinal use of cannabis was very well known and widely used.

The recorded use of cannabis as medicine dates back to almost 5000 years ago, so we can assume that it has been in use even longer than that.

As we learn more about plants and medicine, we are able to appreciate that different parts of the plant have very different and beneficial effects. Separating out the CBD oil from the plant allows us to take advantage of the very unique attributes of cannabis without the illegal and psychoactive component. Because of it’s illegal associations, it took a long time for CBD oil to be studied and brought to market. In fact, it’s still a very niche and novel product, unknown to many people, and yet so powerful.

Benefits of CBD

CBD oil is the most well know compound besides THC in cannabis. Just by typing “CBD health” in to your favorite search engine brings back millions of results.

Above is a list of medical conditions that are helped by cannabis in one form or another from here. While there are many other reported benefits, we will take a look at a few that are related to high performers.

Stress & Anxiety

Unless you decided to ditch material goods and family to live in a cave on a remote mountain top, you are probably dealing with stress on a daily basis. One of the biggest issues my clients deal with is stress, which leads to negative consequences in their performance and health. Many people don’t realize how stressed they are. If we aren’t prioritizing rejuvenation and recovery, then we’re probably not even doing it. We really do have to spend a part of each day on the recovery side of the equation. So many of us may not feel like we’re stressed and thus don’t schedule downtime. This comes back to bite us later.

While we can’t usually stop stress from happening all together, and probably wouldn’t want to since stress is our reaction to potentially dangerous situations, we can help limit the effect it has on us.

From my experimentation with CDB oil, I have found it very good at helping me to recover from intense bouts of physical, mental and emotional stress. I have also used it to lessen the effect of mental stress while it is occurring.

CBD has been shown to help you adapt better to stress and protects against negative effects on your metabolic, immune, cardiovascular and neurobiological functions.[1]

It can also help to treat people struggling with chronic stress and anxiety by regulating the release of glucocorticoids, which is the fundamental hormonal response to stress. [2]

Inflammation

Inflammation is a major cause of poor health, performance and weight gain. Some doctors and researchers claim most disease is a result of inflammation in the body. Inflammation is your body’s response to poor food choices, injury or illness and is the body attempting to protect itself.

Like stress, inflammation is a natural response that is very useful as long as it is really needed and doesn’t run out of control or become chronic. The problem when we develop chronic inflammation and our body is not able to eliminate the source of the inflammation is disease.

We can reduce inflammation in many ways. The most common anti-inflammatory solutions like the NSAID ibuprofen are linked to increasingly worrisome and dangerous side effects. Cannabidiol is a potent anti-inflammatory and may be as effective and have less downside than other over the counter anti-inflammatories.

CBD oil may also have a place in treating a number of human diseases and disorders now known to involve activation of the immune system and associated oxidative stress and inflammation. These include rheumatoid arthritis, types 1 and 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer disease, hypertension, depression, and neuropathic pain. [4]

CBD Has Reduced My Own Inflammation

The main kind of inflammation that I deal with is exercised induced systemic inflammation. Using CBD along with my sauna has lessened the time and severity of most of my inflammation related to exercise or activity.

Cognitive Decline

Cognitive decline is one of the most feared diseases in our modern first world because many people don’t know or believe there is a way to reverse or avoid these diseases. By decreasing inflammation in the brain, which is something that CBD oil does very well, you can slow or even reverse many diseases related to cognitive decline.

It has been show that CBD oil shows very promising results for restoring the memory of Alzheimer’s patients. The results were presented at the Australian Neuroscience Society’s 2013 annual meeting and were published a few years ago. [5]

“It basically brings the performance of the animals back to the level of healthy animals,” Dr. Karl told The Sydney Morning Herald in an interview. “You could say it cured them, but we will have to go back and look at their brains to be sure.”

The researchers believe that CBD’s anti-inflammatory properties may combat the biggest factor of oxidative stress in the brain that could be contributing to cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s.

A major focus here at Eris Fit is on ways to upgrade your brain so that you can perform better in whatever you are doing. CBD really fits in to that mode of thinking.

One of the things I really love about CBD oil is that it helps me to get my brainwaves in to an Alpha wave pattern. Alpha is the brainwave pattern associated with relaxed attention, creativity, problem solving among other things.

Sleep Disorders

Anyone wanting to improve their health and performance needs to make sure they are getting enough quality sleep.

CBD is associated with stimulating a relaxation response in the body and brain. In other words it creates a sense of calm focus with smaller doses. Larger doses are said to help you fall asleep quickly. I have experimented with 10mg of CBD oil both as an oral spray and in capsule form and found the relaxation effect alone from 10mg to help induce me to fall asleep quickly.

Weight Loss

Weight loss?

That seems a little strange considering one major effect of using cannabis is the “munchies”

Even though THC can increase your appetite and cause the “munchies,” CBD has actually been shown to suppress your appetite and even to reduce obesity. [6]

Additional Effects

CBD oil also has a dramatic effect on lowering cortisol [7] and anxiety [8] , which not only helps us perform better, sleep better, but also feel better while we’re at work. Thaddeus is currently experimenting with CBD oil during work to determine if there is a noticeable decrease in anxiety.

Make Sure to Get a Highly Absorbable Form of CBD Oil

If you choose to use CBD oil, it can be expensive. Make sure you get a form that is easily absorbable and thus allows you to use less and make your money go further. Mixing CBD oil with turmeric (another powerful anti inflammatory) allows the oil to be up to 10X more bioavailable than other CBD oils, allowing you to use less while getting a greater effect.

Conclusion

A highly bio available CBD oil can:

Reduce Inflammation, anxiety and cortisol

Help you be alert yet calm

Help you fall asleep faster

Recover faster

Check out the products we’ve vetted from BioCBD to meet our bioavailability requirements. Thaddeus and I will be trying this out for one month and reporting back to you on our experiences. We were each given a bottle of their CBD capsules, topical oil for muscle pain and also a vape pen with a cartridge of CBD oil for it.

For now, if you want to try it out yourself, go HERE and make sure to use the code ERISFIT for 10% off.

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About Chris James

Chris is an outdoor enthusiast that loves spending his free time exploring the forests around his house with his four boys. He loves writing about anything related to wellness but is especially passionate about helping people upgrade their bodies and minds starting with their work life since that is where most people spend the majority of their time.

Joel Munson

In the study you cite on CBD and cortisol, the participants had lower cortisol levels after taking a placebo, and then after they took CBD it helped bring the levels back to normal. So in that case CBD increased cortisol, but in a way to promote homeostasis. I cannot locate a study showing that CBD reduces cortisol levels, but I assume that if your levels were too high, it would bring it back into balance from that direction too.

Hi Joel – Since I can’t read the whole study, maybe you did, but the abstract says that CBD interferes with the secretion of cortisol. Leading me to assume they mean it stops secretions of extra cortisol. You’re right, the study claims that CBD kept more cortisol in the plasma than the placebo, as our body normally begins reducing cortisol throughout the day toward evening when it will be at the lowest. If CBD interferes with Cortisol secretion, it may in fact be able to lower cortisol in a high stress situation by interfering with the body’s ability to secrete more. Every article I find points to that study to show a decrease in cortisol level, but clearly the abstract claims otherwise. Do you have the whole journal article you could share?